The Butterfly Effect
by karissaakawriter
Summary: One small action can change the course of history, like the flap of a butterfly's wing. What really would have happened had Ron and Hermione not shared that kiss on the fateful battle: how it affected the entire wizarding world. WARNING: very dark, heavy violence
1. The Small Moment

Author's Note: Yep, it's been a while since I've posted. Sorry about that. Just finally moved to the new place, and I've been working full time, so it's been a bit difficult to keep writing, and I'm also a bit stuck on Rennervate. I am working on the next chapter of that story now, so it should be up in the next week or so. However, I've had this idea bouncing around in my head for some time now, so I had to put it down. Not the normal 'Hermione didn't kiss Ron' story, I assure you.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

X

X

"The war is long over, you'd best learn to live as it is now, we lost," said Hugur.

"I have spent the last year trying to find you, Hugur," said the man across from him, he was tall and lanky, with a inky black hair and a faded Dark Mark on his forearm, "I hear that you alone have discovered a magic that will allow you to change the past. Was it all a myth?"

"No," the old man replied, "It was no myth, but I can only change very small things of the past, and it is not without extreme danger. The past is not meant to be meddled with, I have found."

"But you _can_ do it," the tall man smiled manically, his voice rising in excitement, "You could stop us from losing, you could kill Harry Potter, or even-"

"I can change small things, Raymond, small actions of one person, like turning left instead of right, or stop them from saying something to another person. Very small things. I cannot stop Harry Potter from possessing the Elder Wand, or walking to his death, or battling The Dark Lord. Those actions are so significant to the past, they are stagnant, impossible to manipulate."

"But some small actions can turn the course of history, can't it? A small action by one of his friends, that could change the whole of it, couldn't it?"

Hugur paused for a moment, "That is possible…" he said thoughtfully.

"We ought to try!" Raymond exclaimed, "To bring The Dark Lord here again, that would make it all worth it."

"Yes, perhaps…"

"Just tell me what you need, and I will see to it that you get it."

Hugur drummed his fingers on the side of his old iron cauldron, "I will need the memories of whose actions we are trying to change, so that I may find a weak point that will change the course of time, and just a teaspoon's worth of their blood."

"I will see to it that you get them," Raymond replied fiercely, "And soon."

X

X

Hermione hummed gently as she walked through the nearly empty streets of Diagon Alley, it was only ever this clear very early in the morning, so she took care to do her shopping then. Even three years after the Final Battle, she still found it difficult to travel anywhere in the wizarding world without being hounded by people asking for autographs, pictures, or even just her stories. She had long grown tired out it.

Has she walked, she gently turned her engagement ring on her finger. It had been just last week that Ron had proposed; she smiled brightly as she thought of what joy a life with him would bring. Sure, he could be maddening at times, but she loved him dearly. She never stopped being grateful that she had decided to kiss him first, on that day that finally brought peace to the world.

She was so lost in her thoughts, that she didn't even notice the tall cloaked man fall into step close behind her, until she heard the faintly whispered spell, "Imperio."

A strong haze fell around her mind, clouding her vision and her focus. She immediately, even in her state of Imperius forced calm, knew what a danger she was in, and fought violently against the spell. She screamed silently in her head as she felt herself turn left suddenly, and walk down a long and narrow alleyway, followed closely by the man who placed her under the spell.

When they reached the end of the alley, her captor forced her to face him, then to sit down on the cold cobblestone ground. He dug into his pocket and pulled out a vial, which he placed into her willing hands.

"Put into this vial every memory you have from the time you reached Hogwarts on the day of the final battle, to the time when The Dark Lord fell."

"No! Hermione, fight this! You must fight this!" she screamed within her own mind, but to no avail. Her body, like a puppet, sprung to do his bidding. She reached into her cloak and drew her wand, then placed it to her temple. Within seconds, the vial he had given her was filled to the brim with bright silver. He took it from her, and slid in gently back into his cloak.

"NO!" Hermione shouted, aloud this time as she finally broke away from the curse. She lurched forward towards the man, wand raised and ready to attack.

But she was too slow, the haze that was still on her mind slowed her reflexes greatly, and before she could even cast a spell, a flash came from the man's wand, and her own clattered to the ground. In the next moment, she was bound tightly by thick black ropes the Death Eater had conjured.

"Why are you doing this?" she grunted, struggling fiercely against her bindings, "We won years ago, there is nothing more for you to gain!"

"That's where you're wrong, Mudblood," a chilling smile crept across the man's face, "I have everything to gain, you see."

He pulled out another vial and a small knife. He sliced the blade quickly across her arm, heedless of her whimper of pain, and began collecting her dripping blood in the vial.

"There is a man who has discovered how to change small things in the past, I'm sure you've heard of him, since the Auror Department is trying very hard to find him before he can do anything dangerous with this knowledge. I found him first. And with your memories, and your blood, we are going to change the course of time," he closed the vial and tucked it away, "The Dark Lord will never have fallen, all because of you, Mudblood. Enjoy this world while you can, because it is all going to change very, very soon. And you won't even remember it."

Before she could speak, or call out for help, the man kicked her roughly in the head, and everything went dark.

X

X

"Excellent choice, Raymond, excellent indeed," Hugur rasped as he resurfaced from watching the memories of Hermione Granger.

"You can do it then?" Raymond asked eagerly

"Oh yes, yes, I can do it," Hugur smiled toothlessly, "There is one point in time, small, weak, seemingly unimportant to the grand scheme of what happened that day, that will change everything."

X

X

"Hang on a moment!" Ron exclaimed, "We've forgotten someone!"

"Who?" Hermione asked, trying to figure out who they could have possibly forgotten, everyone was already here.

"The house-elves, they'll all be down in the kitchen, won't they?"

"You mean we ought to get them fighting?" asked Harry.

Hermione was just about to argue when Ron cut across him sharply, "No, I mean we should tell them to get out. We don't want any more Dobbies, do we? We can't order them to die for us."

Hermione felt a strong surge of affection for him, stronger than she ever had before, but when she was just about to drop her Basilisk fangs and jump into his arms, a strange flash came across her eyes, and stopped her from moving at all. It lasted only a second, and after it was gone she shook her head slightly, trying to remember what she was just about to do.

"You all right, Hermione?" Ron asked, concern thick in his voice.

"Erm… yeah, yeah I'm fine. Just got a little lightheaded there I suppose."

"Right," Harry said seriously, "Let's get out of here so we can get that diadem, alright? We've finally almost got all of them, and thanks to you two we have a way to destroy them."

"Yeah, right," Hermione replied weakly, feeling strongly that something was missing, "Let's go."

X

X

Author's Note: Yes, this is a story about what happened if Hermione had not kissed Ron, but it isn't about relationships or them trying to get together again that are all over the site. This is a much darker take on the story: what really would have happened had she not kissed him at _that_ moment. They say that the world can change at the flap of a Butterfly's wing, so how much would that small moment change the world? You'll find out soon enough.


	2. The Dominoes Begin to Fall

Author's Note: Just a warning, this story is going to be very, very dark. As you will see at the end of this chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

"ROOKWOOD!" Hermione heard Percy roar behind them, she glanced over her shoulder to see the man take pursuit of a tall Death Eater down the corridor, but she gasped and reached out to grab Ron as he went to follow his older brother. He was shaking violently with grief and rage.

"I'm going to kill them! Ron roared as he struggled to tear himself away from her, "I'm going to kill all those bastards! Let me go, Hermione!"

"No! Ron! We can't! We have to-"

She tried valiantly to pull him behind a nearby tapestry, out of sight of others and in a place where she could better restrain him, but he violently ripped from her grasp.

"RON! RON, COME BACK!" She screamed after him as he bolted down the corridor, wand drawn. He flew past Harry without a thought, before his friend knew what was happening, and turned the corner, in obvious pursuit of blood.

Harry stood a few feet away, looking stunned.

"Harry! Harry!" Hermione exclaimed, tears rolling down her face, panic mounting, "We have to kill the snake! It's the only way to stop all of this! Look inside Voldemort! Find out where he is! I'll be right back… I just need to find Ron!"

Then before waiting for an answer, she took off in the direction she saw Ron go, running as hard as she could, ducking underneath rampant curses that flew through the air as she desperately tried to find him.

_What if something happened to him?_ She thought as she desperately searched for the bright red hair that was sure to make him a target, _I never got to tell him… why didn't I just kiss him? That could have been my only chance…_

But she stopped herself because she couldn't stand to continue to picture him dead, gone without her being able to tell him just how much he meant to her. Again, a strange twinge in the back of her mind told her that something was very, very wrong. Something was missing, a blank space in her mind that she couldn't explain away with the nerves of battle or fear. It was something far greater than that that chilled her. She put those feeling to the back of her mind as she continued to search desperately for Ron.

She skidded to a halt in the Great Hall, and searched around in panic at the top of the staircase. Emeralds from the shattered Slytherin hourglass scattered and rolled across the floor, causing combatants to slip stagger periodically as they fought. Hermione noticed two bodies lying beneath the balcony, and hunched over one was a huge grey creature, ripping the corpse apart fiercely. Hermione wished bitterly that she had gotten there just a few sooner to save whoever the victim was… but she knew it was too late for them now.

"LAVENDER! NO!" Parvati Patil screamed in horror, after seeing who the werewolf was stooped over. The girl sprinted across the hall faster than Hermione would have known possible, directly at Fenrir, dodging flying curses as she went. But just as she got close, Fenrir spun around with breathtaking speed, and in a moment that seemed to move by in slow motion: grabbed the girl by the throat with his fangs, bit down hard, and slammed her into the Ravenclaw hourglass. Bright blue sapphires joined the emeralds and blood on the floor, and Parvati's body fell lifelessly from Fenrir's bloody jaws.

Hermione stood in complete dismay, frozen, unable to do anything about the horror that had played out before her. In just a matter of seconds, the two girls that she had shared a dorm with for six years, had died terrible, gruesome deaths.

Professor Trelawney screamed in fury, and hefted a crystal ball high above her head, as if to throw it, but a jet of green light hit her squarely in her back, and her and her crystal ball tumbled over the banister. She was dead before her body hit the ground.

Hermione pulled her eyes away from it, forcing her thoughts to remain only on finding Ron. Find Ron. Find Ron.

She sprinted to the edge of the battlefield and moved as discretely has she could along the wall, searching desperately for her best friend and hoping desperately that he wasn't among the dead.

Suddenly, her head slammed against the marble as she was shoved backwards onto the floor by screaming, fleeing people. As the world spun before her, she could faintly hear Hagrid bellowing, "Don't hurt 'em, don't hurt 'em!" She couldn't even move when a hairy spider's leg brushed against her, and one of Aragog's children crawled over the top of her. She almost didn't want to move. Ron was probably already dead, just like everyone else, and the castle was falling apart around her. Everything was falling to pieces, was it worth it? Her parents wouldn't even know who she was, or that she had died…

"STUPEFY!" the spider flew backwards off of her and slammed into the wall with a sickening crunch. Before she could shake her head clear, a pair of familiar arms wrapped around her and hauled her quickly to her feet.

"Where's Harry?" Ron asked as he pulled her out of the fray. Now that the spiders had gone again, the battle in the Great Hall had resumed.

"I don't know," Hermione panted, struggling to become steady on her feet again, and to ignore the throbbing in her head, "I left him to come after you."

As her vision cleared, she saw guilt shine brightly in Ron's eyes, "I'm sorry, Hermione. I promised I'd never leave you again… it's just… I was so bloody angry, I couldn't stop myself."

"Ron-"

"But then I saw you again, and all I could think about was to make sure you were safe… why did you leave Harry?"

"I had to find you, Ron. We're in this together."

"It's bloody dangerous out here, Hermione!" Ron shouted as a spell shot past them and took a chunk out of the wall behind them.

"That didn't stop you from running out into it," Hermione snapped, "And if you haven't noticed, being at Harry's side isn't the safest place in the world to be, but it's where we belong, so let's go find him."

Ron nodded, "Right. I think I saw him, when the spiders broke through… or at least his feet from under the cloak. He ran out after Hagrid"

Hermione nodded, "One of the giants broke a hole through the wall down the corridor so that we can get out onto the grounds without having to fight our way through."

"Let's go… and be careful, alright?"

Hermione caught his eye for a long moment and replied, her voice full with affection, "You too, alright? I don't want anything to happen to you."

"We'll make it through this together, Hermione," Ron replied as they began to run down the corridor together, "We've got to."

Together they ducked underneath flying spells and cast shield spells to protect each other. Hermione pressed closer to Ron and held back her tears when she saw Tonks's body sprawled lifeless in the middle of the corridor. Her hair was its natural mousy brown, her dark eyes stared vacantly up as they passed. Hermione raised her wand and used it to move Tonk's body out of direct harm's way before turning away from her with a muffled sob.

When they arrived at the massive hole in the castle wall, Ron clambered up onto it and reached down to help Hermione climb up beside him, then together they jumped down onto the soft grass on the other side.

They paused for a moment to look up at the Quidditch field in the distance going up in flames.

"It's all falling apart now, isn't it?" Ron whispered, "It's going to end now, one way or another."

"Yes, I think so," Hermione replied, "Now let's go find Harry."

"Oh no, Hermione… I think I've found him," he pointed to a spot far to the left, halfway between them and the Forbidden Forest. Dementors were soaring down from the sky by the dozens, landing down toward and surrounding a lone figure that was standing as still as stone among them. The figure had Harry's telltale messy black hair. The last Hermione saw of him was him falling to his knees, before a Dementor swooped down in front of him.

"HARRY!" Hermione screamed as she tore across the grounds, Ron close on her heels. She raised her wand and cast the strongest Patronus she ever had at the thickening group of Dementors surrounding her best friend. But even her strongest patronus could not compare to the patronus the Harry could produce at any time. Her otter sent two Dementors flying away, but even more came soaring down, even when Ron's terrier charged at them as well.

"Expecto…" Hermione tried to cast another patronus, but couldn't bring herself to do it. Couldn't find a happy thought. Ron seemed to be having just as much difficulty.

Just when she thought all was lost, a silver hare, a boar, and fox flew past them and tore through the hoard of Dementors, bringing down each of them until finally they were all gone: taking the haze of cold and numbness along with them.

Harry was on his knees in the grass, his head down. His glasses were shattered on the ground beside him. He did not move.

"Mate?" Ron asked, stepping carefully towards his friend. Something was very wrong. They could all sense it.

"Harry?" Luna whispered, even she sounded worried.

Harry's hand clenched around his wand, but he didn't look up at them.

"Come on, Harry," said Hermione, her voice shaking, "We have to go."

Finally, Harry's head snapped up and looked at them. But what stared back at them was not their friend.

The soft green of his eyes was replaced by a blood red. His pupils were tiny black slits, like the eyes of a cat. He grinned slightly, but it wasn't Harry's odd crocked grin, but the hungry grin of a monster.

He got to his feet, his wand sending off sparks. He opened his mouth, but only a sickening hiss came from his lips.

It was clear then, at least to Hermione, that Harry Potter was gone; the Dementor's kiss had stolen his soul away from him. And all that was left was a horcrux, the one they never knew that Voldemort had made, sealed away within Harry's now soulless body.

And the only way to defeat Voldemort was to destroy every horcrux.


	3. The World Gone Mad

Disclaimer: I don't own anything about Harry Potter, except for my own personal love of it.

Warning: This is extremely, extremely dark. But trust me through it, please.

X

X

"Harry?" Ron asked, his voice shaking with apprehension, "Mate, what's wrong?"

"Avada Kedavra!" Harry hissed. The jet of green barely missed Ron, and hit Luna, who was standing behind him, full in the chest. Her body hit the ground with a sickening thud.

"Luna!" Seamus screamed, falling beside her body in hysterics, "NO! Harry, what have you done?"

Hermione stood in absolute shock over the girl's corpse. Luna had always been so… happy, so pure and untainted by any adversity, she had always been an unwavering light, even in the darkest of times. She had seemed immortal. It seemed unreal that her life had been snuffed out so quickly, there had been no warning, no sign of what was to come, no way to fight it: they hadn't even got to see her airy smile one last time. Her death seemed most senseless of them all, and the world seemed to screech to a halt at the sight of the young, naïve, kind girl dead in the grass: her dirty blond hair spread around her head like a halo, her blue eyes stared blankly up at the sky, seeing nothing.

A small memory passed through Hermione's mind, from just a few weeks before. It was at Dobby's funeral, when Luna Lovegood had knelt down and gently knelt down and closed his eyes: _There, _she had said _Now he could be sleeping._

In a mad moment, unthinking of the immediate danger, Hermione knelt down and closed Luna's eyes. _Sleep well, _she thought, _dream of all of those impossible things you always believed in._

All of them were suddenly ripped back into reality by the sound of Harry's low, malicious chuckle.

Hermione looked back to him, tears in her eyes, to see him staring at all of them with a wicked grin plastered on his face.

"Funny thing," he hissed, it was Harry's voice, but it was not, "death. How quickly it comes to those who defy me, and how very hard they try to stop its inevitability… but only I can be the master of death."

"I'm going to kill you!" Seamus screamed, jumping to his feet with his wand drawn, "I'm going to fucking kill you, Potter!"

He lunged at Harry, before Hermione could stop him. But it took only a short moment before another jet of green flashed, and he crumpled to the ground.

"HARRY!" Ron shouted, "HARRY, STOP!"

Another jet of light zoomed towards Ron, but Hermione was able to yank him violently out of the way before it hit him.

"It's not Harry anymore!" Hermione sobbed as they dodged yet another curse. There was little place to hide in the large open field.

Horcrux-Harry cackled madly as he felled Ernie as he had attempted to run away, "Yes, yes, your Harry is gone! Ha ha ha ha ha! Harry Potter is dead! At last! And a better death than imaginable! Now hold still, blood-traiter! Stop moving, mudblood! Come and meet your death! Crucio!"

Hermione had not been quick enough to dodge this spell, and she immediately fell to the ground, writhing in unbearable agony. She was barely able to hear Harry's mad laughter of her own screaming as her insides felt as if they were ripped apart, fire consuming her skin, her every bone snapping under the incredible pain.

And then, abruptly, the pain stopped, and there was no sound besides the distant battle in the castle.

She forced herself to open her eyes, and turned over to look in Harry's direction.

There, lying still in the grass, with a basilisk fang protruding from his back, was Harry Potter. His blood pooled around him, his glasses were snapped in half just a foot away. His eyes were open wide, but had, in death, reverted back to their normal green. The world truly had gone mad.

A pair of gentle, familiar hands took hold of her, and helped her to her feet.

"You alright?" Ron asked, his voice cracking slightly. His hands were covered in blood… Harry's blood. Of all the people to have killed Harry Potter, life was exceptionally cruel to make it Ron who ended his life. But then… their Harry had died earlier, at the hands of a Dementor.

"No," Hermione whispered, "No, I'm not. I don't think anything will be alright ever again."

Ron nodded and sniffed, looking everywhere but at his best friend, dead on the ground, "What-… happened to him, H-ermione?" he choked out, "I get that… dementor… but why…"

"I don't know why I didn't see it before," Hermione sobbed, "His connection with Voldemort… it all makes sense now… Harry… he was a horcrux. I don't know how, maybe he was his entire life. So when the Dementor stole his soul… it left the part of Voldemort behind."

They stood in absolute silence for a long time. Trying to accept the impossible: Harry Potter was dead. Not only was Harry, their best friend of seven years, dead, but he had killed three others: Luna, Seamus, and Ernie. Their friends, people who had helped them, been there for them, fought by their side. What was there to do anymore? Everything seemed entirely hopeless now.

"What do we do now?" Ron asked weakly as he watched the Gryffindor tower crumble in the distance.

"I-… I don't know," Hermione replied quietly, "I suppose… we should hide them, for now. If they got ahold of Harry…"

She didn't need to say it aloud for Ron to know what she meant. The Death Eaters would desecrate Harry's body, but only after parading it around like a prize.

"Let's take them into the Forbidden Forest," She continued, no more tears would come… she felt numb, dead inside, "I'll… put charms around them… so they won't be seen."

"And then what?" Ron asked hopelessly.

"We kill the snake," she replied, "We finish what Harry started; we kill the snake, and then we kill Voldemort. This has to end."

Ron nodded mutely, "Let's do this then… the faster we get it done, the less people that have to die…"

As quickly, but as gently, as they could, Hermione and Ron carried the bodies of their friends into the Forbidden Forest. Hermione thought she would faint from it.

_No, _she told herself, _No, you have to be strong. You have to end this, or more people will die._

Luna's body was sickeningly light to carry. Her time in Malfoy Manor had made her dangerously underweight, and yet she hadn't even made a single complaint: she had carried on with a bright smile on her face and a skip in her step, as always. Now she looked a small child as they laid her gently down onto the leaves in the soft shadows of the trees.

The worst to move, though, was Harry. As they moved his body to the protection of the forest, Hermione couldn't help but sob quietly, and imagining all of the laughter she had shared with him. She could see clearly the light that sparked in his eyes when he was truly happy. She remembered crying into his shoulder, and his arms wrapping around her to comfort her. Hermione even remembered each and every argument with a certain fondness, because when he quarreled with her he was still passionate, still alive to fight. She remembered the love that he felt for Ginny, and how he had hardly dared to hope to begin a life with her once the danger was finally out of his life.

Now he would never have a chance to build a life.

After they laid him down next to Luna, Hermione placed his newly repaired glasses gently on his nose. He wouldn't be Harry without his glasses.

Ron was silent for a moment before whispering to her in a small, broken voice, "Hermione… if we had been there… if I hadn't run off…"

"Ron, you can't blame yourself-"

"He might still be alive," Ron said, a tear rolling down his face, "We left him, when he needed us most, this is my fault. Oh Merlin, this is all my fault. If I hadn't run off… if I had just listened to you…" he fell to his knees beside Harry, and cried out, "Harry! Harry, please wake up, please. We need you, mate, everyone needs you," his shoulders shook under great heaving sobs, "This is all my fault."

"No, Ron, it's not your,"

"I KILLED HIM!" he bellowed, slamming his fists on the ground in agony, "I killed my best mate! Stabbed him in the back with a bloody basilisk fang, Hermione! How is it not my fault?"

Hermione knelt down beside him, tears falling down her face, "R-ron, Harry was al-ready gone b-by then, you did w-what you needed to d-do," she rested her hand gently on his shaking shoulder: he didn't shrug her off.

"But it's still because of me that he was there alone in the first place, Hermione," Ron sighed into his hands, "It's still my fault."

"No, it's not, Ron," Hermione sniffed, "Something… I don't know, something happened, something isn't right… this isn't happening like it should."

"What gave that away?" Ron snapped, "All of our friends being dead, maybe? I don't think anyone planned for this, Hermione. This is all so wrong."

"No, that's not what I meant… I-" Hermione didn't know how to explain it. Nothing that was happening felt real. It felt like something had happened; something had been taken out of her that should have been there. It was a strange feeling, separate from the horror and grief at what she had seen, one that she could not attribute to what had happened.

"N-nevermind," she whispered, "Ron, we n-need to go. I need to put up the spell to h-hide them, and we need to go k-kill the snake, and defeat Voldemort once and for all. We can't let anyone else die… we can't. We're the only ones who can stop this now."

He nodded and shakily got to his feet without a word. Hand in hand, they stepped back a couple of paces, and Hermione cast a silent concealing charm. The bodies of their friends disappeared from view, and Hermione conjured a small red flag to plant in the ground, so the spot would not be lost, and their bodies could be properly buried when all of this was over.

Hermione and Ron both knew that they would never tell another soul what Harry had done before he had died. They didn't want his memory tainted with what the horcrux had done with his body. No one would question that the others had been killed by Death Eaters.

They could afford to mourn no longer, they had to kill the snake. They had to finish what they had started.

And that's when Voldemort's voice echoed through their heads with his newest message.


	4. A New Hope

Disclaimer: I don't own anything of Harry Potter.

X

X

"Your savior is dead," the high, cold voice cackled manically, "Harry Potter was killed by my dementors while he tried to escape, attempting to leave you all to die for him."

Hermione held her hands to her temples tightly; Voldemort must have been there, in Harry's mind, when he died.

"You have fought," Voldemort continued, "valiantly. Lord Voldemort knows how to value bravery. Yet you have sustained heavy losses. If you continue to resist me, you will all die, one by one. I do not wish this to happen. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a loss and a waste."

There was a dreadful pause, "Lord Voldemort is merciful. I command my forces to retreat immediately. You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity. Treat your injured. And after that hour, my forces and I will return to the field, at which time, you will surrender to me. You will relinquish every Mudblood you are hiding amongst your ranks. If you do not comply, you, and all of your families, will die. One hour."

The voice stopped, and there was nothing but silence. The sounds of explosions and chaos coming from the castle had ceased entirely: the quiet was suffocating.

Then, very slowly, people started to leak out of the castle. There were mostly Death Eaters, returning to their master, but some were students, teachers, Aurors, come to find the dead and the injured on the outskirts of the castle. It was strange seeing them walking so near Death Eaters without conflict. The temporary cease-fire had brought the only peace they had seen in a long time.

Wordlessly, Hermione and Ron made their way back to the castle. As they walked, Ron reached out and grabbed her hand.

Upon his touch, a flash of what seemed like a memory came clearly in her mind. It was a time, very different from now, in which Ron snatched her hand with a smile and started pulling her towards a small house. Her heart surged with affection towards the little cabin, and a single word came to her mind when she saw it: _home_.

Then, as quickly as the picture had come, it was gone. She shook her head in confusion; she had never seen that house in her life, so why did it seem so very familiar? So right? Whatever memory that was seemed to be the only thing that made sense in all of this chaos, even though Hermione was sure it had never happened.

She pushed the memory to the back of her mind as they neared the castle: she needed to focus on what was real.

"They're going to ask us… about what happened," Ron said as they neared the entrance, the doors to the Great Hall had been torn from their hinges.

"It wasn't Harry," was all that Hermione said, "He didn't do those things, it was the horcrux."

Ron nodded, and together they stepped into the Great Hall.

They were met immediately by a wide-eyed and nearly hysterical Ginny Weasley.

"He was lying," she said desperately, looking to them for confirmation, "He was lying, right? Harry, he isn't…"

Many other faces looked up to them for an answer: all desperately hopeful that The-Boy-Who-Lived still fought among them.

Ron hung his head and stared at the ground, "He… he didn't lie."

His soft words were heard throughout the entire all, and people cried out in dismay.

"No!"

"Not Harry!"

"Why?"

But even these words were hardly more than whispers, like speaking it louder might make it true. The loudest sound was the loud crack when Ginny lashed out and slapped Ron across the face.

"No!" she shouted as Ron stumbled backwards, her eyes on fire, "You were supposed to protect him! You were supposed to be with him! Where the FUCK were you?"

Hermione's voice shook violently as she responded, "G-Ginny, we… we g-ot separated. W-we couldn't get t-to him… in time."

Ginny rounded on Hermione this time, and for a moment she thought the younger girl was going to strike her as well, "You're not supposed to get fucking separated. You're the bloody _Golden Trio_! You're supposed to be the one with the brains, Hermione. You were supposed to get him out of this alive! You _promised _me!" For the first time in the entire time Hermione had known her, Ginny started to cry. Her words became nonsense and she fell to her knees, sobbing.

Hermione remembered; right before the wedding and the day they had to leave to hunt horcruxes, Ginny had pulled her aside.

"I need to you to promise me one thing, Hermione," she had said very seriously.

"What, Ginny?"

"When you three leave here, doing who-knows-what, I need to promise you that you'll use that giant brain of yours and keep Harry alive."

"Ginny-"

"You hear me? I want to promise me that you'll get him through this."

Something in those desperate brown eyes had made Hermione make a promise she didn't know if she could keep, "I promise, Ginny."

And now Harry was dead.

"I'm so, so sorry Ginny," Hermione whispered as Mrs. Weasley came forward to lead her daughter away, tears streaming down her own face. So far she had lost two sons: Fred, and Harry.

Suddenly, a disheveled man with long, dirty blond hair stumbled out of the crowed. Xenophilius Lovegood had somehow escaped from the Death Eaters that had ransacked his home and had made it to the Battle of Hogwarts .

"Where's my Luna?" he croaked out, "Has anyone seen my Luna?"

"She's dead," Ron spat out, rubbing the red hand print that shone brightly on his pale cheek.

Xenophilius froze and stared at them, his eyes wide and his mouth agape. The only word he was capable of forming was the quiet, almost inaudible, "How?"

"Luna, Seamus, and Ernie came to help us try to save Harry," Hermione explained gently, "But… a weapon of Voldemort's… k-killed them. We tried to stop it, but it was too strong."

A long silence fell over everyone in the Great Hall, before a familiar voice called out, "So what do we do now?" Katie Bell asked.

For a moment, no one knew the answer, until Neville Longbottom stood up, "What else do we do? When they return, we fight! We're all going to miss Harry, he was one of my best friends, but we weren't fighting for him! We were fighting for all of us, weren't we? For freedom, so we wouldn't have to live in fear of Death Eaters knocking on our door and taking everything that's important to us. We're fighting to knock that bastard Voldemort on his ass, aren't we? Dumbledore's Army!"

From his words, everyone who could stood up and gave a triumphant shout. This was the final assertion that they would not be put down without a fight, even if every last one of them died for it.

A sudden loud screech sounded over the shouts of the Great Hall, and they all looked up to see a creature that they all had thought gone at Dumbledore's absence: Fawkes, the Phoenix, swooped down from the ramparts towards Neville and dropped something into his hands before flying away again.

It was the old Sorting Hat, but it seemed heavier than normal. Neville peered into it for a moment, before a large grin spread across his face. He reached into it and triumphantly pulled out The Sword of Gryffindor. Holding it above his head, he shouted once again, "Dumbledore's Army!"

And with that simple and amazing action, all of them dared to hope again.

Neville lowered the sword again and looked to Ron and Hermione, "Tell us what we need to do. You three came here looking for something, didn't you? The diadem? Did you find it?"

Ron nodded, "Yeah, we found it, and destroyed it. But now there's only one last thing that has to be destroyed before You-Know-Who can be killed."

"What?"

"We need to kill his snake," he said, slamming his fist into his hand with conviction, "We do that, and he can be killed as easy as any of us, no coming back after that."

"Alright," Neville said, "Just kill the snake. Should be easy enough, if we're all aiming for it, right?"

Hermione shook her head, "Not that easy, I'm afraid. It can't be killed with regular spells, it's… cursed. In fact, the only thing that we have that could kill it is that," she pointed to the sword Neville held in his hand.

He raised the weapon up, "The sword?"

Hermione nodded.

Neville nodded resolutely, "Then I'll do it," he said, "I'll just need a way to get close enough without Voldemort taking me down before I get there."

Ron pulled out Harry's Invisibility Cloak and handed it to Neville, "Put this on," he said, "then sneak up behind him and kill the bloody thing. And if you can stick it through You-Know-Who too, that'd be fantastic."

Neville nodded and took the cloak, "Wish me luck," he said.

"They're coming!" someone shouted from the doorway.

Simultaneously, everyone looked out of the door to see that it was the truth. A mass of black cloaked wizards were making their way towards the castle: Voldemort and his snake, unguarded, at their helm.

"Alright!" Neville shouted, he had suddenly become their new leader at Harry's death, "We've come this far, and we're not giving up now! Don't attack until I've killed the snake, and once I have, just remember that Voldemort can be killed just as easily as anyone else! Dumble-… Harry's Army!" And then, with a flourish that would have made Fred proud, he picked the Sorting Hat up off the ground and set it on his head: then he disappeared under the Invisibility Cloak.


	5. Chaos Reigns

Disclaimer: I don't own anything of Harry Potter.

X

X

"Stop."

At Voldemort's order, the Death Eaters came to a top across the courtyard from where everyone was gathered. As they had all hoped, Voldemort's snake was now slithering freely across the ground by its master's feet; he thought that there was no threat to his pet any longer.

It was that foolish pride that Hermione hoped would be his downfall.

"Harry Potter is dead!" Voldemort shouted to them with glee, "Do you understand now, deluded ones? He was nothing, ever, but a boy who relied on others to sacrifice themselves for him!"

"He beat you!" Ron shouted angrily. Hermione gripped his arm tightly, hoping that Voldemort wouldn't strike him down immediately.

Upon Ron's words, there was an uproar of defiant shouting in the crowd. They would show that Harry wasn't their only hope, they would never surrender.

"SILENCE!" Voldemort cried, casting a charm that forced silence on them all, "Harry Potter is dead! He didn't beat me, I win! I'll always win!" he sounded almost childlike.

In a fit of anger, Voldemort shot a killing curse into the crowd without aim. Professor McGonagall fell to the ground, dead.

Hermione tried to scream, but the silencing charm held fast upon her, as it did everyone. So instead of an uproar, everyone just stood in stunned silence.

"You see?" Voldemort cackled, "You see what happens to those who-"  
He was interrupted as a glint of steel flashed through the air very near him, and lopped off Nagini's head. The great snake's head spun through the air and landed with a small thud at Voldemort's feet.

During his attack, the Invisibility Cloak slipped off of Neville, leaving him with only the sword in his hands, and completely unprotected. Before he could turn the weapon for another attack, Voldemort sent the sword flying from his hands. It stuck in the ground several yards away.

"Who is this?" snapped Voldemort, all the mirth gone from his voice.

"That's Neville Longbottom, my Lord," Bellatrix Lestrange replied nervously, "Remember, the one who has been giving the Carrows so much trouble? Son of the Aurors?"

"Oh, yes," Voldemort snarled, staring coldly at Neville, who was standing before him defiantly, with the Sorting Hat sitting proudly atop his head.

"You have made a grave mistake, Neville Longbottom," he hissed, "You're pureblood; you are of noble stock. You would have made a very valuable Death Eater."

"I would never join you!" Neville shouted, so he could be well heard by the crowd behind him, "Harry's Army!"

"On your head, then" Voldemort hissed. He pointed his wand at Neville, causing him to become rigid and still.

Voldemort walked slowly up to Neville, "There will be no more Sorting at Hogwarts School," he said. "There will be no more Houses. The emblem, shield and colors of my noble ancestor, Salazar Slythering, will suffice everyone. Won't they, Neville Longbottom?"

He reached up and pulled the Sorting Hat further down on Neville's head, so that it stopped well below his eyes.

"Neville here is now going to demonstrate what happens to anyone foolish enough to continue to oppose me," and with the flick of his wand, the Sorting Hat burst into flames.

The action brought everyone to action. They would not let this stand, and they all knew that Voldemort was a mortal man now. With screams that seemed to split the sky, they broke free of the silencing charm by sheer will alone and charged.

Chaos reigned.

Buckbeak and other Hippogriffs soared at the heads of bellowing giants, and soon even thestrals- seen by all now- joined in the fight. Grawp roared and slammed against the other giants with all his might. Even the Centaurs galloped from out of the forest, sending their deadly arrows flying.

Ron tugged Hermione quickly through the doors of the Great Hall, where the greater part of the battle was already amassing. But as soon as they arrived, the surging mass of combatants ripped them apart. Hermione screamed his name, but she could not even hear her own voice.

Without knowing how it happened, Hermione found herself dueling Bellatrix Lestrange with Ginny. The older witch was overtaking them quickly, and in the heat of the battle, Hermione remembered dueling with Luna Lovegood, and wished violently that she was there with them… then just maybe they could take Bellatrix down once and for all.

Ginny's actions were slower than normal, usually she was a keen fighter, but she was distracted by loss, and an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness that she had never felt before. She barely even dodged in time to miss Bellatrix's killing curse.

"NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!" Hermione could hear Mrs. Weasley's scream even over the cacophony of battle. In a matter of moments she felt herself being swept aside by with woman as she took on the battle herself.

Mrs. Weasley screamed at anyone who tried to help her fight the Death Eater, and blocked every attack pressed upon her, even with Bellatrix's biting taunts.

Finally, Bellatrix laughed a cackling, exalting laugh, and didn't even have time to block Mrs. Weasley's curse that landed straight over her heart.

It was then that, in a fit of rage, Voldemort blasted his opponents away and turned his wand to the woman who took the life of his best lieutenant.

There was no one who could stop him in time, everyone was too locked in their own duels. Mrs. Weasley was dead within a moment of her triumph.

Ginny launched herself at Voldemort with a terrifying scream, but he knocked her down with a simple stunning spell, not even bothering to kill her.

After that, their forces continued to fall to the Death Eaters. George was knocked from the overhead balcony. Kingsley was killed by a killing curse to the back from Voldemort. Kreacher and several of his fellow House Elves were crushed by falling rubble. Cho Chang, Michael Corner, Mrs. Sprout, Zaharias Smith, everywhere Hermione looked, people she knew, grew up with, were dying.

_Please,_ she thought, _Please let Ron be okay._

Her silent pleas seemed to be answered in a moment. A hand wrapped around her arm and tugged her backward into a shadowy corner. She raised her wand, preparing to fight this new assailant.

"It's me!" Ron hissed, "Come on!"

"Ron, we have to-"

"We've lost," he snapped as he threw the Invisibility Cloak over the both of them, "We've got to get out of here before they realize it and start picking the rest of us off. There's not enough left of us to fight them anymore."

Hermione studied his face under the Invisibility Cloak. Except for a gash on his left cheek and a couple bruises here and there, he seemed relatively unharmed, but his eyes… his eyes were darker and more full of anger than she had ever seen them. The worst of it was that she suspected that her eyes reflected the same.

"Ron…"

"_Hermione,_ we have to go. _Now_. Or we're as good as dead, too."

After a moment, she reached up, gripped his arm tightly, and nodded.

Under the cover of the cloak, the two slipped out of Hogwarts, unseen by the last, desperate combatants of a lost war.

X

X

Author's Note: I have to admit, I surprise even myself with how dark I can write. I have great plans for this story (don't worry, still haven't given up on Rennervate) and I'm excited to get to them.

Now, I'm not one of those authors who dangle chapters over your head to get more reviews- I'll finish both of my stories no matter how many reviews I get- however, I will say this: reviews definitely control the speed with which I post new chapters. It's not purposeful on my part, but I definitely will admit to having more motivation when you all tell me what you think.

So, if you let me know what you think, I would very much appreciate it, and I'll do my best to update quicker (no promises though, being a full time student and having a full time job doesn't give me a whole lot of downtime).


	6. Running for Life

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from the Harry Potter universe.

X

X

They slipped off the cloak the moment that they felt they were far enough into the shadows of the Forbidden Forest, and took off at a dead run into the trees.

It had taken only moments to realize that the Death Eaters had put the barriers that prevented disapperation back up around the grounds.

They were trying to trap the survivors in, to make sure every single witch or wizard who opposed them was put to death.

Hand in hand, no longer encumbered with the invisibility cloak over them, Ron and Hermione ran. There were shouts, and the explosions of spells a distance to their right, but thus far there was no sign of anyone near them: one of the two reasons they had chosen to slowly make their way under the cloak to this far side of the forest.

The other reason was to bury the dead.

Ernie, Seamus, Luna, and Harry, all now lay buried beneath hastily made graves on the edge of the Forbidden Forest: angled just so, so that when the sun rose every morning, it would alight brilliantly upon their headstones. That had been Ron's idea. He said that it's what they would have wanted, and Hermione agreed.

Even though they were in a hurry, with Death Eaters possibly going to close in upon them at any moment, Hermione had taken an extra moment to carve more than just their names upon their headstones. On Harry's she had tears in her eyes as she wrote:

_Harry James Potter_

_The Man Who Lived_

_And Died_

_Protecting Those He Loved_

_And Fighting for Freedom._

_He Will Live Forever in the Hearts of All_

_Who Knew Him._

As they left, she made sure to cast a spell protecting the graves from the sight of those who might desecrate them.

And now, they ran for their lives. Together they leapt over the curling roots of trees, ducked under low hanging branches, and continued as fast as their feet would take them into the depths of the forest.

For a while, the only sounds were their feet thudding against the ground, and their labored breathing, but they didn't stop. They couldn't stop, until they were outside of the barrier and could apparate to safety.

If there were such a thing as safety anymore. It seemed as if the whole world were burning: you might be able to outrun fire for a time, but you could never hide from it.

As they ran, Hermione felt another strange, otherworldly tug at her mind again, like the remembrance of a dream that didn't seem like dream at all. She had run with Ron like this before, but not in this desperate flee for their lives: she remembered laughter. They had run across a great open Qudditch Field. Harry and Ginny had been ahead of them, laughing as they tried to get away. Harry had worn Auror's robes, and Ginny wore the robes of a Quidditch team Hermione didn't recognize.

But… that had never happened, had it?

Just then, an explosion very near to them jolted Hermione out of her strange thoughts. With an unspoken agreement, Hermione and Ron veered to the left, running in the opposite direction of the sound.

They only made it a couple more paces before they came face to face with Fenrir Greyback. He smiled wickedly at them as they came to an abrupt halt.

Hermione looked around, thinking of a way to escape, only to find they were surrounded by five other men, just as ragged and unkempt as Fenrir. She shuddered, her mind analyzing every scenario she could come up with to be able to get them both out alive. The chances were looking very grim indeed.

"You really think you could get away so easily?" the werewolf asked, his yellow teeth flashed at them triumphantly, "Maybe you could have, from incompetent _normal_ wizards," he spat the words in contempt, "But not from us. We could _smell_ your fear. Couldn't we, boys?"

The other werewolves around them grunted in savage agreement.

In a flash, without any warning whatsoever, Fenrir whipped out his wand and disarmed both Ron and Hermione with a soundless spell. Their wands flew out of their hands. A man a few paces behind them caught the wands in his dirty hands.

Suddenly, their chances of escape were next to nothing, Hermione realized in defeat. After all they had been through, they were so close to escape, only to be stopped just short of freedom.

Ron gripped her hand in his tightly. It seemed he had come to the same conclusion.

"I love you, Hermione," he whispered to her, in the voice of a man who might never have the chance to say those words again.

"I love you, too, Ron," she whispered back, her voice breaking. Inside, she was screaming. Why had it taken _this_ for them to finally come to terms with how much they cared for each other? Why hadn't she told him before?

_I tried,_ she thought back to that brief moment in the Room of Requirement. What had stopped her from leaping into his arms and finally kissing him, as she nearly had? She cursed herself for not having taken that chance.

"Aww," Fenrir mocked, "How very touching. The Dark Lord is very cross with you, as I hear it, for meddling as much as you have. I've been given orders to bring you two in, _alive._ It seems that since he didn't get a chance to confront Potter, he'd like the chance with you two."

Hermione shuddered, knowing what that would mean for them.

Fenrir snapped his fingers at two of his company, and they rushed up and grabbed Hermione and Ron, ripping them away from each other.

"Let her go!" Ron shouted, struggling fiercely with his captor, "Take me if you have to, but let her go!"

"No!" Hermione shouted in return, desperate to at least see Ron escape alive. She directed her gaze to Fenrir, "No, no, Fenrir, you only want me. Just let him go, and you can do whatever you want with me," she did her best to ignore Ron wordless shout of rage.

Fenrir let out a cruel, barking laugh, "Why in the world would I let either of you go?"

He stepped uncomfortably close to Hermione, his foul breath that smelled of rotting flesh ghosting across her face. He lifted a hand and let a single yellow finger nail drift from her cheek in a tantalizingly slow line down her neck.

"Don't touch her!" Ron screamed, struggling even harder against the iron grip of the werewolf behind him.

Ignoring Ron, Fenrir said, his filthy hand dancing cruelly across her collar bone, "No, you see, Mudblood. I'm going to take you both back to The Dark Lord, and he's going to do whatever it is he wants to you both. But don't worry, he promised that if I could capture you, that he would be sure to leave you alive afterwards for me," he reached up and grabbed her chin, forcing her to look over at Ron. She met his desperate eyes.

"And maybe," Fenrir remarked, "He'll leave your little boyfriend alive, too, so that way…" he leaned forward and whispered in her ear, "We can make him watch before he dies."

Hermione couldn't help herself, she screamed in fury and, since her hands were being held tightly behind her back, she slammed her head forward as fast as she could.

She smiled wickedly as she felt cartilage break, and Fenrir stumbled backwards, clutching his nose and howling. Blood gushed out from between his fingers; his eyes were full of unmatched fury.

Hermione looked up at Ron, and if it had been any other situation, she could have laughed at the look of dumb shock across his face.

She had decided that if there were unspeakable horrors in front of them, that she might as well meet them with one last act of rebellion.

Fenrir staggered back to his feet, and raised his fist as he prepared to strike her with a force that promised to hurt her far more than she had hurt him. She closed her eyes and waited for the strike to come.

But it didn't.

Instead, there was a dull _thwump_, and a small choking sound.

She opened her eyes to see the feathers of an arrow protruding from a surprised Fenrir Greyback's chest. He stared dumbly at it for a moment, before falling to the ground.

"Centaurs!" The man holding Hermione shouted. He released her as he began to draw his wand to meet the attackers, but he didn't have time to use his weapon before an arrow brought him to the ground as well.

The werewolves seemed to forget all about Ron and Hermione, and instead rushed to get into formation and place protective spells before the centaur charge was upon them in full.

"Let's go!" Hermione shouted to Ron, who seemed enthralled with the centaurs that came charging to them out of the dark forest.

He snapped out of his trance as she shouted to him, but instead of running with her away from the fight, he starting running towards it.

"Ron!" Hermione shouted desperately, but he ignored her. Instead, he ran to one of the four werewolves and tackled him to the ground. The skirmish lasted only for a moment before Ron knocked the man out and reached into the pockets of his robes to pull something out.

The other men didn't even seem to notice their companion fall, and Ron quickly ran back to Hermione, holding her wand out to her, "I figured we wouldn't get far without these."

Hermione nodded, wondering why she hadn't even given thought to their wands, and took hers from his outstretched hand.

"Let's go," she said, "We shouldn't be too far from the barrier now."

And then they ran, pushing the sounds of the dying men from their minds. Hermione's heart raced as they barreled through the anti-dissaperation barrier, and disappeared from the forest with a snap. She hoped where she was taking them would be safe for the time being, and thought about the terrible fate they had so barely escaped.


End file.
